Name

In Latin, Y was named I graeca ("Greek I"), since the classical Greek sound /y/, similar to modern German ü or French u, was not a native sound for Latin speakers, and the letter was initially only used to spell foreign words. This history has led to the standard modern names of the letter in Romance languages – i grego in Galician, i grega in Catalan, i grec in French and Romanian, i greca in Italian – all meaning "Greek I". The names igrek in Polish and i gờ-rét in Vietnamese are both phonetic borrowings of the French name. In Dutch, both Griekse ij and i-grec are used. In Spanish, Y is also called i griega; however, in the twentieth century, the shorter name ye was proposed and was officially recognized as its name in 2010 by the Real Academia Española, although its original name is still accepted.[3] The original Greek name υ ψιλόν (upsilon) has also been adapted into several modern languages: in German, for example, it is called Ypsilon, in Icelandic it is ufsilon i, and in Italian the name is ipsilon or i greca. In Portuguese, both names are used (ípsilon and i grego).[4] In Faroese, the letter is simply called seinna i ("later i") because of its later place in the alphabet.

The oldest direct ancestor of English letter Y was the Semitic letter waw (pronounced as [w]), from which also come F, U, V, and W. See F for details. The Greek and Latin alphabets developed from the Phoenician form of this early alphabet. In Modern English, there is also some historical influence from the old English letter yogh (Ȝȝ), which developed from the Semitic gimel (as described below).

Vowel

The form of the modern letter Y is derived from the Greek letter upsilon. The Romans first borrowed a form of upsilon as the single letter V, which represented both the vowel sound /u/ and the semivowel consonant sound /w/. (In modern written Latin, V is typically distinguished from U.) This first loaning of upsilon into Latin is not the source of the Modern English Y (instead, it is the source of Modern English V and U).

The usage of the Greek Y form of upsilon as opposed to U, V, or W, dates back to the Latin of the first century BC, when upsilon was introduced a second time, this time with its "foot" to distinguish it. It was used to transcribe loanwords from the prestigious Attic dialect of Greek, which had the non-Latin vowel sound /y/ (as found in modern French cru (raw), or German grün (green)) in words that had been pronounced with /u/ in earlier Greek. Because [y] was not a native sound of Latin, it was usually pronounced /u/ or /i/.[citation needed] Some Latin words of Italic origin also came to be spelled with 'y': Latin silva ('forest') was commonly spelled sylva, in analogy with the Greek cognate and synonym ὕλη.[5]

The letter Y was used to represent the sound /y/ in the writing systems of some other languages that adopted the Latin alphabet. In Old English and Old Norse, there was a native /y/ sound, and so Latin U, Y and I were all used to represent distinct vowel sounds. But, by the time of Middle English, /y/ had lost its roundedness and became identical to I (/iː/ and /ɪ/). Therefore, many words that originally had I were spelled with Y, and vice versa. The distinction between /y/ and /i/ was also lost in later Icelandic and Faroese, making the distinction purely orthographic and historical, but not in the mainland Scandinavian languages, where the distinction is retained. It may be observed that a similar merger of /y/ into /i/ happened in Greek around the beginning of the 2nd millennium, making the distinction between iota (Ι, ι) and upsilon (Υ, υ) purely a matter of historical spelling there as well. In the West Slavic languages, Y was adapted as a sign for the close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/; later, /ɨ/ merged with /i/ in Czech and Slovak, whereas Polish retains it with the pronunciation [ɘ]. Similarly, in Middle Welsh, Y came to be used to designate the vowels /ɨ/ and /ɘ/ in a way predictable from the position of the vowel in the word. Since then, /ɨ/ has merged with /i/ in Southern Welsh dialects, but /ɘ/ is retained.

In Modern English, Y can represent the same vowel sounds as the letter I. The use of the letter Y to represent a vowel is more restricted in Modern English than it was in Middle and early Modern English. It occurs mainly in the following three environments: for upsilon in Greek loan-words (system: Greek σύστημα), at the end of a word (rye, city; compare cities, where S is final), and in place of I before the ending -ing (dy-ing, justify-ing).

Consonant

As a consonant in English, Y normally represents a palatal approximant, /j/ (year, German Jahr). This use was possibly influenced by the Middle English letter yogh (Ȝȝ), which could represent /j/. (Yogh could also represent other sounds, such as /ɣ/, which came to be written gh in Middle English.)

Confusion in writing with the letter thorn

When printing was introduced to Great Britain, Caxton and other English printers used Y in place of Þ (thorn: Modern English th), which did not exist in continental typefaces. From this convention comes the spelling of the as ye in the mock archaism Ye Olde Shoppe. But, in spite of the spelling, pronunciation was the same as for modern the (stressed /ðiː/, unstressed /ðə/). Ye (/jiː/) is purely a modern spelling pronunciation.[7]

Other languages

⟨y⟩ represents the sounds /y/ or /ʏ/ (sometimes long) in the Scandinavian languages. It can never be a consonant (except for loanwords). In Norwegian, it forms part of the diphthong ⟨øy⟩, which is spelled ⟨öj⟩ in Swedish, and ⟨øj⟩ (formerly ⟨øi⟩) in Danish.

In Dutch, it usually represents /i/. It may sometimes be left out of the Dutch alphabet and replaced with the ⟨ij⟩ digraph. In addition, ⟨y⟩ and ⟨ÿ⟩ are occasionally used instead of Dutch ⟨IJ⟩ and ⟨ij⟩, albeit very rarely.

In German orthography, the pronunciation /yː/ has taken hold since the 19th century in classical loanwords – for instance in words like typisch/ˈtyːpɪʃ/ 'typical', Hyäne, Hysterie, mysteriös, Syndrom, System, Typ. It is also used for the sound /j/ in loanwords, such as Yacht (variation spelling: Jacht), Yak, Yeti; however, e.g. yo-yo is spelled "Jo-Jo" in German, and yoghurt/yogurt/yoghourt "Jog(h)urt" [mostly spelled with h[citation needed]]). The letter ⟨y⟩ is also used in many geographical names, e.g. Bayern Bavaria, Ägypten Egypt, Libyen Libya, Paraguay, Syrien Syria, Uruguay, Zypern Cyprus (but: Jemen Yemen, Jugoslawien Yugoslavia). Especially in German names, the pronunciations /iː/ or /ɪ/ occur as well – for instance in the name Meyer, where it serves as a variant of ⟨i⟩, cf. Meier, another common spelling of the name. In German the y is preserved in the plural form of some loanwords such as Babys babies and Partys parties, celebrations.

In Icelandic writing system, due to the loss of the Old Norse rounding of the vowel /y/, the letters ⟨y⟩ and ⟨ý⟩ are now pronounced identically to the letters ⟨i⟩ and ⟨í⟩, namely as /ɪ/ and /i/ respectively. The difference in spelling is thus purely etymological. In Faroese, too, the contrast has been lost, and ⟨y⟩ is always pronounced /i/, whereas the accented versions ⟨ý⟩ and ⟨í⟩ designate the same diphthong /ʊi/ (shortened to /u/ in some environments). In both languages, it can also form part of diphthongs such as ⟨ey⟩ (in both languages), pronounced /ei/, and ⟨oy⟩, pronounced /ɔi/ (Faroese only).

In French orthography, ⟨y⟩ is pronounced as [i] when a vowel (as in the words cycle, y) and as [j] as a consonant (as in yeux, voyez). It alternates orthographically with ⟨i⟩ in the conjugations of some verbs, indicating a [j] sound. In most cases when ⟨y⟩ follows a vowel, it modifies the pronunciation of the vowel: ⟨ay⟩ [ɛ], ⟨oy⟩ [wa], ⟨uy⟩ [ɥi]. The letter ⟨y⟩ has double function (modifying the vowel and [j] or [i]) in the words payer, balayer, moyen, essuyer, pays, etc., but in some words it has only a single function: [j] in bayer, mayonnaise, coyote; modifying the vowel at the end of proper names like Chardonnay and Fourcroy. In French ⟨y⟩ can have a diaresis (tréma) as in Moÿ-de-l'Aisne.

In Portuguese, ⟨y⟩ (called ípsilon in Brazil, and either ípsilon or i grego in Portugal) was, together with ⟨k⟩ and ⟨w⟩, recently reintroduced as the 25th letter, and 19th consonant, of the Portuguese alphabet, in consequence of the Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990. It is mostly used in loanwords from English, Japanese and Spanish. Loanwords in general, primarily gallicisms in both varieties, are more common in Brazilian Portuguese than in European Portuguese. It was always common for Brazilians to stylize Tupi-influenced names of their children with the letter (which is present in most Romanizations of Old Tupi) e.g. Guaracy, Jandyra, Mayara – though placenames and loanwords derived from indigenous origins had the letter substituted for ⟨i⟩ over time e.g. Nictheroy became Niterói.
Usual pronunciations are /i/, [j], [ɪ] and /ɨ/ (the two latter ones are inexistent in European and Brazilian Portuguese varieties respectively, being both substituted by /i/ in other dialects). The letters ⟨i⟩ and ⟨y⟩ are regarded as phonemically not dissimilar, though the first corresponds to a vowel and the latter to a consonant, and both can correspond to a semivowel depending on its place in a word.

Italian, too, has ⟨y⟩ (ipsilon) in a small number of loanwords. The letter is also common in some surnames native to the German-speaking province of Bolzano, such as Mayer or Mayr.

In Polish, it represents the vowel [ɘ] (or, according to some descriptions, [ɨ̞]), which is clearly different from [i], e.g. my (we) and mi (me). No native Polish word begins with ⟨y⟩; very few foreign words keep ⟨y⟩ at the beginning, e.g. Yeti (pronounced [ˈjɛtʲi]).

In Czech and Slovak, the distinction between the vowels expressed by Y and I has been lost, but consonants before orthographic (and historical) Y are not palatalized, whereas they are before I.

In Welsh, it is usually pronounced [ə] in non-final syllables and [ɨ] or [i] (depending on the accent) in final syllables.

In Estonian, ⟨y⟩ is unofficially used as a substitute for ⟨ü⟩. It is pronounced the same as in Finnish.

In Lithuanian, ⟨y⟩ is the 15th letter and is a vowel. It is called the long i and is pronounced /iː/, like in English see.

When used as a vowel in Vietnamese, the letter ⟨y⟩ represents the sound /i/; when it is a monophthong, it is functionally equivalent to the Vietnamese letter ⟨i⟩. Thus, Mỹ Lai does not rhyme, but mỳ Lee does.[clarification needed]<?----> There have been efforts to replace all such uses with ⟨y⟩ altogether, but they have been largely unsuccessful. As a consonant, it represents the palatal approximant. The capital letter ⟨Y⟩ is also used in Vietnamese as a given name.